The Skillery is a Nashville coworking space with resources and programming for freelancers, entrepreneurs, small teams and independent professionals, all aimed at making work meaningful, satisfying and unabashedly fun.

Business Model Canvas

The Skillery's version of the business model canvas was designed to help aspiring entrepreneurs identify and organize assumptions as you explore or start a new business.

Our favorite version of our favorite tool.

The business model canvas is a chart. A template. A tool to collect descriptions of the building blocks of your business. it can be printed out on a large surface so groups of people can collaborate, jointly discussing and identifying important elements of the specific model. it encourages entrepreneurs to list assumptions using sticky notes or whiteboard markers, and to group those assumptions by general category, so assumptions can be replaced and revised easily as they’re validated and invalidated.

The Business Model Canvas was released by strategyzer.com under a Creative Commons license, so it’s open for anybody to adjust and augment. At The Skillery, we’ve tweaked it to better suit the needs of the aspiring entrepreneurs in our community. We’ve moved some things around, added and removed other things, changed some wording. And we’ve tested our version with dozens of entrepreneurs in classes and workshops at our Nashville coworking space. We feel like we’ve landed on a friendly, accessible and easy-to-understand canvas that contains the important building blocks of objectively evaluating a business idea.

Grab a canvas, and get to work.

Download and print the full-size canvas here. We recommend printing at 11x17 on 100# card stock.

Instructions for use.

If you’ve never used a Business Model Canvas before, don’t let unfamiliarity hold you back. Dig right in. The beauty of this tool is that it’s super easy to use, even for a novice entrepreneur. Here’s how to get rolling:

Download and print the canvas.

Snag your canvas at the link above. Then, print your canvas at home, or send it to your local printer. We recommend printing at 11x17 on 100# card stock.

Fill your canvas with assumptions.

Use 1.5-by-2-inch sticky notes to fill your canvas with assumptions. Why sticky notes? Your assumptions will change, and using sticky notes will allow you to revise your canvas easily, as needed.

Revise as you go.

Hang your canvas somewhere accessible. Make sure you can see it every day and access it from your workspace. You’re going to want to make changes to it throughout the process of starting and running your business, as you validate and invalidate assumptions.

What's next?

After you've filled your canvas with assumptions, what's next? You'll need to validate and invalidate those assumptions as you build your business model. For help, consider joining us at an Introduction to Entrepreneurship workshop, or take our Starter Kit home and get to work!

The curriculum for Introduction to Entrepreneurship was developed by The Skillery, and is available to organizations worldwide seeking to offer business education and community support to aspiring entrepreneurs.